Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

hey everyone. im new to painting...wellI used to play casually years ago but i knew nothing. Really just recently learned that you're not supposed to dip the brush into the paint.
So here are five tacticals that I have been slowly working on. trying to improve my skills before I start any serious characters.

here are my guardians of the covenant. please give critique besides pointing the obvious that my highlights are too thick.

thanks, much appreciated

Are they finished? Because besides the middle one it doesn't really seem like they are... The metal looks fine of course if thats what you're going for. The red areas maybe do a little more of a highlight and also try and thicken up the white. You also might want to make the casing of the gun black. Your scheme doesn't look too bad though, and it should be pretty easily to do a whole quick army like this. Just see what you like, keep practicing, and put up some more pics when you finish the other ones.

-Color Sgt. Kell

thank you very much for the advice.
None of them are finished yet - the closest being the middle one of course. overall I'm happy with how they look - my nephews are awestruck but still a lot of room for improvement.

I have another nine assault marines painted but they were more of a warm up for the units i will actually use in battle.

i will definitely take your advice into consideration.
cheers!

edit: I was a little disappointed in the gold eagle on the middle breast plate.
i just used the auric armour gold over leadbelcher + nuln oil wash. I should probably get more gold paints or what?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also...does anyone know of where to buy a cheap magnified lamp?

and with regards to highlighting. i didnt mean to give no advice here...this is especially where i feel i need.improvement. free hand skills suck.

alright the rest of the squad has pulled ahead in terms of progress.
this was the first time i ever saw the models in sun light so i was quite surprised by how red the robes look. in normal lighting its a lot more burgundy (used mephiston red for base, agrax earth shade wash with blood red/evil sons highlight).

can anyonr give me some tips for my fail shoulder pads...i struggle with white and gold.

also...the other five tac marines have elysian green eyes which are too olive and dont stand out enough. i am waiting to receive a moot green in the mail. any suggestions?

Well white is hard to paint and you just have to add some layers of it to get the needed smoothness. And you probably need to water the white down somewhat to avoid it looking chalky or have visible brush strokes.
And what i do for gold it start with a brown base color and paint the gold over it. This way the gold doesn't need to be totally perfect and depending on what brown (dark or lighter) you use you can change the color of the gold slightly.

There are two ways of painting eyes that i like. The first is a reflective lense. Paint roughly half of the lense lighter green. Us the half next to the "nose" and add add a tiny white dot or line in the outer side of the lense oposite to your lighter green.

The other cool eyes are glowing eyes. Add the light green more in the center of the lenses and add another even more lighter green (or even white) in the center of this light green. Then edge highlight the area around the eyes with your light green to create the glow.

For gold i just wash silver in sepia and nuln oil, then highlight with silver

They are looking good, i think getting some earthshade and pin shading would really finish it off, dont wash the whole thing just put a bit of it around the recesses
The slight colour to it helps add a bit of depth to metallics, this guys calf is probably the best pic i have of it

Looks good, I like the revised color scheme on the shoulder and the snowy base.

 btldoomhammer wrote:
Well white is hard to paint and you just have to add some layers of it to get the needed smoothness. And you probably need to water the white down somewhat to avoid it looking chalky or have visible brush strokes.
And what i do for gold it start with a brown base color and paint the gold over it. This way the gold doesn't need to be totally perfect and depending on what brown (dark or lighter) you use you can change the color of the gold slightly.

There are two ways of painting eyes that i like. The first is a reflective lense. Paint roughly half of the lense lighter green. Us the half next to the "nose" and add add a tiny white dot or line in the outer side of the lense oposite to your lighter green.

The other cool eyes are glowing eyes. Add the light green more in the center of the lenses and add another even more lighter green (or even white) in the center of this light green. Then edge highlight the area around the eyes with your light green to create the glow.

When laying the Dark Angels symbol on the shoulder pad...I just want to layer the raised edges right? And what exactly is a good colour to layer with white?
Would it be possible to use the Runefang Steel that I layer with bolt gun metal as well?

Thanks for the tip with eyes. I might have to do a practice run or two before I get to my real models.
I'm wondering if I should use Elysian Green for the Base and Moot green for the lighter part. Although I fear those colours won't work out together.
If it's possible could you give me some picture examples of both the techniques that you described?

Thanks a lot! I will be trying out the gold on the Imperial eagle on the breastplates.
That said I have a few fears.
I've already shaded the eagle very strongly. I'm afraid that if I base with brown it will damage the details. Perhaps it would be wiser to dry-brush both the brown and gold colours? That said, I think the gold would look a lot better with Agrax Earth shading. Hopefully I didn't feth it up too much in my hastiness

@Spears Nice looking models!! love the paint scheme
But are you saying to add earth shade to the metallic parts?
And sorry for my n00bness, but what is pin shading?

Either way thanks a lot guys!

First of all a warning. I don't have that much experience as a painter and my knowledge of colors and color combinations is limited.

 vril maximus wrote:


When laying the Dark Angels symbol on the shoulder pad...I just want to layer the raised edges right? And what exactly is a good colour to layer with white?

Just layer the raided stuff you actually want to be white. You can either apply many layers of white on top of each other or start with a grey and add white over it. Runefang Steel should probably work.

I'm wondering if I should use Elysian Green for the Base and Moot green for the lighter part. Although I fear those colours won't work out together.
If it's possible could you give me some picture examples of both the techniques that you described?

I'd go for a more richer green. Elysian Green seems to be too pale for my liking. Especially if you want to try yourself at glowing eyes. Maybe warpstone glow + moot green
For normal lenses this is a nice tutorial: http://fromthewarp.blogspot.de/2010/11/painting-space-marine-helmet-lenses.html
And here is one for glowing eyes: http://www.coolminiornot.com/articles/1288

And with the gold the brown is ment to be the base. So if you'd do it it will cover up all shading. This is how i do gold: Brown base -> Gold -> brown wash -> highlight with light gold.
If you want a more shining gold(the wash dulls it) you can repaint the washed areas with gold again only leaving the wash in the recesses and then highlight with light gold or even silver.

great resources mate!
This will help a lot.
I have some Moot green en route from mwg and will have to run down to my local shop to pick up...I think Warp stone Glow will be the best.
Concerning the gold plan;

With brown colours I have Gorthor Brown and Doom Bull brown.
With gold I have only Auric Amour gold. I assume the best base for that would be Gehenna's gold with Earth Shade Wash.

Basically I want my Guardians to look as much like this epic shot as possible



With the Robes I primed in black...Mephiston red base with earthshade and evil sunz highlight.
I'm wondering if I should brighten it up with mixing Mephiston/Evil Sunz together for the base and mixing Evil Sunz with the even brighter "Pure Red" from Army Painter as a highlight.

For the robe symbols would the same brown + Gold still be recommended or would it be possible to mix it with my Yriel Yellow?

thanks again, and sorry to bombard with questions!